Understanding Ellen White

Canright and contemporary Ellen White criticisms

D. M. Canright’s influence on the critics of Seventh-day Adventism and Ellen White during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has been enormous. In the decades following Canright’s death, his books were kept in circulation and used by non-Adventist evangelicals to assail the teachings of Seventh-day Adventists. Anti-cult evangelical writers were clearly informed by D. M. Canright and included Adventism in their books on the cults. ²⁶ Ellen White was a focal point of the criticisms, with Canright’s Life of Mrs. E. G. White, Seventh-day Adventist Prophet: Her False Claims Refuted as the major source. By 1960, Walter Martin, cult expert and major player in the Questions on Doctrine story, ²⁷ could write in his book The Truth About Seventh-day Adventism that “D. M. Canright laid the foundation for all future destructive criticism of Seventh-day Adventism, and careful research has confirmed the impression that nearly all subsequent similar publications are little more than repetitions of the destructive areas of Canright’s writings.” ²⁸ UEGW 137.2

The 1970s saw Canright’s influence felt in several academic corners of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. ²⁹ In 1976, for example, Ron Numbers published Prophetess of Health: A Study of Ellen G. White, the most significant critical publication on Ellen White since Canright’s Life of Mrs. E. G. White. Although Numbers did not reflect the same attitude seen in Canright’s writings, he reached similar conclusions. ³⁰ In the early 1980s, Walter Rea published his noted The White Lie, trumpeting the charge of plagiarism in Ellen White’s writings. ³¹ Many in the church were caught off guard by Rea’s book, but it was a recycling of a charge already advanced by Canright in the late 1880s. ³² UEGW 137.3

The late 1990s changed everything when Ellen White criticisms went global on the Internet. By 1998, Dirk Anderson’s Web site using Ellen White’s name was circulating anti-Ellen White material, and Canright’s Life of Mrs. E. G. White eventually became a part of the Web site. The Ellen G. White Estate now owns the domain name, and Dale Ratzlaff continued Anderson’s site under a new name. ³³ Today, both of Canright’s books Adventism Renounced and Life of Mrs. E. G. White are accessible on the Internet for free download, but their reprinted hard copies are also available at online bookstores. Thus, in the early twenty-first century, Canright’s writings are more accessible than ever before. ³⁴ UEGW 138.1

Dudley M. Canright’s departure from Seventh-day Adventism and his subsequent thirty-two-year campaign to discredit its prophetic messenger can be considered a critical turning point in the history of Ellen White criticisms for four reasons. (1) In the culmination of his work Life of Mrs. E. G. White, he recycled the criticisms of Ellen White’s prophetic ministry from 1845 to the late 1880s. (2) He conceived new criticisms against her, such as the plagiarism and epilepsy charges. (3) Canright introduced almost all issues that would be raised against Ellen White in the future. ³⁵ Consequently, most of the criticisms circulating on the Internet today are recycled from Canright’s criticisms. Even when an occasional new criticism is posted, it still finds itself in the framework of his stratagem. (4) He provided a model that almost all future critics of Ellen White would copy. From the non-Adventist evangelical critics of the early twentieth century to the former Adventist critics of today, most of them have copied the pattern of criticism he laid out in Life of Mrs. E. G. White and have considered this volume to be influential in their thinking. In this sense, therefore, Canright can be called the “father” of Ellen White criticisms. UEGW 138.2

In reflecting on Canright’s history, his on-and-off experience with Ellen White’s prophetic ministry, his struggles with Adventist doctrine, his final departure from the church, his thirty-two-year campaign against Adventism, and his significance to Ellen White studies, the issue of fairness comes to mind. Because he was one of us, one of the pioneers in Seventh-day Adventist Church history, we have a right to tell D. M. Canright’s story. But it is extremely important that we are fair and impartial in telling his story. ³⁶ The typical Adventist response to Canright is to attack his character rather than refute his arguments. But it should be remembered that an attack on his personal weaknesses does not prove his arguments wrong any more than a defense of his personal strengths proves his arguments right. Fairness and objectivity toward Canright’s person is the best way forward. The following three caveats will, I believe, help us better tell his personal story. UEGW 138.3

First, we must not use the contradictions in his personal experience as proof that his arguments were wrong. There was no doubt in the minds of those who worked closely with Canright while he was a Seventh-day Adventist, such as Ellen White and G. I. Butler, that he had character flaws that manifested themselves in his unstable experience with the Adventist ministry during the decade between 1873 and 1883. ³⁷ This on-and-off experience with Adventism and Ellen White is a part of his story and cannot be ignored. But it should never be used to prove that his arguments were wrong. Canright’s arguments should be evaluated strictly on the quality of his premises and conclusions, and the way in which he handles the evidence for his claims. This is the only valid way to prove or disprove the accuracy of her argument. Such an attitude allows supporters of Ellen White to acknowledge the positive attributes in Canright’s life experience. UEGW 139.1

Second, we must not forget the positive contributions Canright made to the Adventist Church while he was a practicing Adventist minister. This aspect of Canright studies has too often been neglected in the past and deserves more attention. Ellen White acknowledged Canright’s intellectual gifts and believed he had “ability to present the truth to others.” ³⁸ During his twenty-two years as a Seventh-day Adventist minister, his prolific pen produced numerous pamphlets, tracts, books, and articles in the Review and Herald and Signs of the Times, defending and advocating Adventist doctrines. ³⁹ Canright’s arguments in favor of Adventist beliefs have been so valued that Adventist apologists have often used them to refute the later Baptist Canright’s arguments against Adventist doctrine. ⁴⁰ One example of his “investigative mind,” as Ellen White called it, ⁴¹ was his 1871 book History of the Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul, which showed his command of history and Scripture. UEGW 139.2

Canright’s most significant and overlooked contribution to Seventh-day Adventism, however, was the biblical tithing system. ⁴² When the concept of systematic benevolence was adapted by the church in 1859, it did not involve the “tenth” of all income. This took years to evolve, and it was Canright who, in 1876, clinched the argument from Malachi 3:8-11. In two Review and Herald articles (February 17 and March 2) he articulated with force and precision the concept that “God requires that a tithe, or one-tenth, of all the income of his people shall be given to support his servants in their labors.” This “one-tenth” of “all our income” is “not ours; it belongs to God.” ⁴³ He explained with specificity the issues of what “one-tenth of all your income” means and how “the money is collected and what is done with it.” ⁴⁴ UEGW 139.3

The clarity of his reasoning and biblical explanation was so convincing that he was invited to present his findings at the General Conference session held at the end of March. As a result, the session “unanimously adopted” two resolutions worded by Canright that called all church members “under ordinary circumstances, to devote one-tenth of all their income from whatever source, to the cause of God.” ⁴⁵ Thus, because of Canright’s clear thinking and biblical reasoning on the subject of systematic benevolence, Seventh-day Adventists increasingly practiced biblical tithing from that time forward. ⁴⁶ UEGW 139.4

Third, we must be careful in assessing Canright’s relationship to Ellen White and Adventism after he left the church. There are essentially two views on Canright’s post-Adventist experience. The first view was expressed by Seventh-day Adventists who corresponded with Canright in his post-Adventist years and claimed he believed that he had made a great mistake in leaving Adventism and regretted the harm he had caused, but felt he had gone so far he couldn’t return. The other view, represented by his associates in the Baptist ministry, church members, and family, held that he never regretted leaving Adventism and believed its doctrines were wrong and Ellen White was a false prophetess until the day he died. UEGW 140.1

These two sides in the Canright debate are expressed classically in two books: Norman F. Douty’s The Case of D. M. Canright, published in 1964, and Carrie Johnson’s I Was Canright’s Secretary, published in 1971. ⁴⁷ Douty wrote as a Baptist pastor critical of Adventism and sympathetic to Canright, whereas Johnson wrote as a Seventh-day Adventist who was critical of Canright. Consequently, those critical of Adventism and Ellen White tend to favor Douty’s version, while those supportive of Adventism tend to favor Johnson’s version. UEGW 140.2

Both of these biographies rely on testimonial evidence for their assertions and tend to be parochial in their research and conclusions. Research has shown that there are flaws in both of their presentations. To be sure, the real Canright lies somewhere between these two biographies. And the more accurately and fairly we portray the real Canright of history, the more credibility we bring to our defense of Ellen White’s prophetic ministry. UEGW 140.3